


Grow As We Go

by getoffmybarricade



Category: Les Miserables
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, enjoltaire - Freeform, grantaire is amazing, suicide awareness, supportive enjolras
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:34:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25133209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/getoffmybarricade/pseuds/getoffmybarricade
Summary: ...Because the last time Grantaire had sat here, he’d been about to throw himself off of the jagged cliffs that overlooked the seas...*inspired by Ben Platt’s ‘Grow as we go’*
Relationships: Enjolras/Grantaire
Comments: 1
Kudos: 27





	Grow As We Go

The gravel of the winding path crunched beneath his feet, the gentle wind tickling his cheek as Grantaire walked the familiar route of a path he knew so well. 

The entire world still asleep, and it provided the sweet satisfaction of pretending he was the only person there, like it was his secret. And in a way it was. Not the place of course, but the memories that were held there. Tears that had dried on the dusty floor long ago, blood that had been washed away by the winter’s winds. It was  _ his  _ place, in his heart anyway. 

He could see the sun beginning to rise in the distance, warming the mountain tops and bringing the world to life. Strokes of coral pink and twinkling golds streaking the skies and reminded Grantaire of a picture he had once painted; soft strokes of the gentlest colours mixing together on a canvas. 

Grantaire walked over to where he used to sit all those years ago, alcohol running in his veins as surely as his blood, tears of pain and frustration and anger being shed. 

This was a place where he used to escape to when the weight of the world was too much. He could cry and curse and let out his pent up frustration, scream at the skies and wish more than anything that he could just die. Leave. Escape the dark tendrils of pain that tied him to the earth, its iron grip closing around his throat until he couldn’t breathe. 

He had been so angry; angry at the world, at himself. Angry because there was nothing he could do to stop feeling that way. And there had been a time when he wanted nothing more than to disappear off of the face of the earth forever. For everything to just stop, the world to stop spinning and people to stop laughing, just for a moment. Everything moved so fast, leaving only flashes of the life he used to know behind, and he was scared. He didn’t know what the future could possibly bring besides a torrent of further pain and anger that would never truly bubble down.  _How could they be happy_?  He used to think,  _ how is it fair that they can be happy and yet I can be full of so much of pain and hatred and anger ?  _

Because the last time Grantaire had sat here, he’d been about to throw himself off of the jagged cliffs that overlooked the seas...

  
_He stumbled over to his usual place on the rocks, a bottle of some vile tasting drink in his shaking hands. He could still taste it on his tongue, smell it on his own breath, and his stomach lurched as he brought the bottle back to his lips._

_ The wind was fiercer than usual, slapping _

_ at his cheeks and biting at the exposed skin like tiny teeth that were chewing away on his fears. He could hear it howling and screaming into his ears and he curled up into a ball, rocking forwards and backwards, his pain swallowing him completely.  _

_ Grantaire let out a cry of anger, the seas below him swirling, crashing against the rocks and spitting foam almost as viciously as his own anger thrashed inside of him. It was late, the skies darkening but refusing to relent its ever pouring turrets of icy rain it was unleashing.  _

_ His head throbbed, the alcohol burning in his throat, and his heart was threatening to split out of his chest. He didn’t care anymore. And how could he? How could he care when everything was so much all at once; layers of pain and sorrow and raw anger that were slowly crushing him. Destroying him.  _

_ The tears kept coming, running in rivers down his face, even when he was sure he had nothing left to cry, and he felt all of his hope disappear completely.  _

_ He was staring into a void; a deep, endless black pit that sucked the light from the world and hid the way out. He couldn’t see how he could escape without falling. He could give in and lurch into the swirling mass of dark and hopelessness, and eventually he would have to hit the bottom. And maybe that would be the end, that blissful sweetness which promised safety.  _

_ But that only came within the arms of death.  _

_ He shuffled closer to the edge, watching as part of the cliff broke away, tumbling into the depths of the churning seas below. This was it, he told himself. How hard could it be? To jump... _

_ He didn’t know how long he stood there, eyes stinging and struggling to breathe, but he couldn’t move, couldn’t imagine himself letting go completely... _

_ Was this what he wanted? YES, he tried to scream, YES! He couldn’t get better. He’d tried, people had tried to help him but they couldn’t. No one could. It would be selfish to keep living and burden everyone else with his own pathetic problems...right?  _

_ Right?  _

_ He couldn’t find the answers he needed. And if he couldn’t then what if he made the wrong choice? Any second now someone could run up the cliff side path, grab his arm and pull him back to safety. But he didn’t want that! He couldn’t want that! If he did, if even the smallest part of him did, he wouldn’t go through with it.  _

_ But there  _ was _ that a tiny part of him, the part of him that thought about the people who he might hurt if he ended this, that told him he wasn’t ready. He wasn’t ready to let go, to day goodbye to his friends who loved him.  _

_ And most of all, he wasn’t ready to say goodbye to Enjolras.... _

_ It was stupid. Enjolras hated him, and rightly so. Grantaire was annoying and cynical, always ruining his speeches and ideals. He attended his meetings to patronise him, to poke holes in his beliefs...or that was what he told himself. But the only times he ever felt alive were when the blonde revolutionary with the dangerous blue eyes focused his attention on him. When he locked eyes with him and shut him down, trampling over his feeble arguments and letting the flame in his eyes turn into a wildfire.  _

_ So Enjolras hated him.  _

_ And Grantaire loved him. Anyone could see that.  _

_ But...but would he be happy to see him dead? Somehow, he didn’t think so.  _

_Enjolras was a kind person, he cared about everyone, thought everybody to be_ equal. _He spent his whole life trying to make the world somewhere worth living, bringing people closer together with his tongue that could spark a flame even in the darkest times. He cared about everyone. So..._

_ (Don’t think it. If you do...) _

_ So wouldn’t that mean he cared... _

_ (...You won’t do it...) _

_ Even a little?  _

_ Grantaire relaxed a little, his breathing slowing. This wasn’t his time, not yet. He didn’t have answers, which meant he couldn’t act on anything yet. He wasn’t okay. But could he be? _

_ And shit! Shit, these were fucking excuses! He didn’t really believe any of this. But he was making up reasons not to jump, not to end it all, and why?  _

_ Why? Because he was scared. No.  _

_ Because ending your own pain only passes it on to someone else. A friend, a family, people who care. People who cared and would one day wind up in the same position as himself if he stoped his own pain now.  _

_ But the storm around him wasn’t calming at all, and the winds picked up their viciousness, slamming into him from behind.  _

_ He lost his footing.  _

_ His entire life flashed before his eyes, visions of his friends and himself. The paintings that hung on the walls of his apartment, ones he’d painted himself. Of Enjolras’s vivid blue eyes and kind smile that melted his chest when directed at him. Of everything and nothing, little reasons that screamed and reached out to tell him that he didn’t have to go yet.  _

_ He could. He could, but no one was telling him to. Only his shattered heart and broken mind that meant nothing! The only person telling him to let to go was himself... _

_ And his heart threatened to pound out of his chest, blood thumping in his ears as he let out a cry of panic. In a moment of fear, he gripped hold of the nearest tree branch, the wood slippery and sharp beneath his numbed fingers. He didn’t want to die, he realised.  _

_ He didn’t want to die, he didn’t want to die, he didn’t want to die... _

And now, five years later, Grantaire once agin visited the same place. 

But it didn’t look so threatening now, not at 

all. 

The skies were clearing and with it, the dawn of a new day. A new life. 

He closed his eyes and let a smile break out, filling his entire face and lighting him up inside. And he laughed. He was here. He was alive! He didn’t have to fear his own mind and be unsure of the damage he might bring on himself. 

There would always be days when he thought he couldn’t go on, when the pain and the pressure forced him back down, but he was learning to keep going. 

This time round, he wasn’t going to let his own mind tell him what he could and couldn’t do. 

He was strong, he was capable, and most of all, he was alive. 

Grantaire felt a warm hand rest on his shoulder, and turned around to see Enjolras stood there. There were tears glistening in those blue eyes, but he could see they were happy tears. Proud tears. 

He grabbed Enjolras’s hand and pressed a kiss to his lips, feeling himself grinning all the while. He’d done it, he’d made it. He was okay. They were okay. 

Grantaire rested his head on the other man’s shoulder and looked out into the distance; the rising sun and the way it lit the whole world up as it did so. The same way Enjolras lit up his own heart, piecing the broken pieces back together again until he was whole. He was a new man. 

It was time to move on, start a new life, and Grantaire was happy to do so. He could leave behind the shadow of a lifetime that once troubled him and lead a free one. One of happiness and hope, because the man he loved would be right beside him the whole time. 

All those years ago, he’d wanted nothing more than for everything to end. 

But today, all he wanted to do was live...

**Author's Note:**

> Yay! Happy ending! I love R so much!! But seriously, this is a sight!!! DONT DO DO IT! Please, please, please don’t.....
> 
> Thank you for reading :)


End file.
